Originally posted by john galt:So, you're suggesting that the most selfish and narcissistic species on the planet today, and likely the most selfish and narcissistic species since the Velociraptors that existed from 71 to 75 million years ago, should stop using fossil fuels because it might acidify the shallow parts of the ocean? ...and, as if that wasn't bad enough, you've decided that nuclear power, the only viable substitute which might possibly displace fossil fuels to maintain the lifestyle that 6 billion humans desire above all else, can't be used either.

I can see why BC's largest agricultural export is so popular; it no doubt makes delusional thinking seem real.

Humans have never stopped using anything until it's gone or they found something to replace it. There's not a 'hope-in-hell' that humans will do anything to stop the inevitable race to extinction for themselves and many of the other species on the planet. Sure, a few individuals like you and I will significantly reduce their impact on the planet, but those few are but a drop in the bucket and will never make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Unless there is a plague that decimates the human population, the human race is doomed to extinction, just like the Velociraptors. We're simply not intelligent enough to survive.

-Truly most humans are, in fact, sheep-I think market forces will force change before the cataclysm, but why not help the transition with well founded policy.And in true non anthropocentric fashion, we could use a lot less of us.....Remember, the mother of all mass extinctions, which correlated with high CO2, caused more than 90% of ocean life to go extinct- and the land dwellers were not spared.Extinction events are times of great change- which means opportunity!The age of dinosaurs followed the Permian-Triassic extinction:And the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum Extinction ushered in the Mammals-Who doesn't love mammalian thingamies???

And- oh yes! British Columbia takes great pride in being the world leader in Marijuana cultivation technology, from which grew our dominance in hothouse/hyroponic food production.It's good stuff! Wanna buy some?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday.

Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science.

We are asked to act as if the Earth is in danger unless we spend trillions on remedies to Climate Change. None of the models that predict the dire future we face unless we act now can take the initial conditions of 1900 and show the temperature pattern from 1900 to 2010. If it can’t reconstruct the past, why should we accept its predictions?

The proper conclusion is that we don’t know, but Lindzen is correct: we need to study it more but we need not panic, and we certainly should not bet $Trillions that we understand climate. --Dr. J Pournelle

If Scientists suggested a 25% chance of acquiring a terrible terminal illness from an expensive disgusting habit would you quit?It's proven that messing with the carbon cycle is BAD NEWS.

Resources expended on reduction, efficiency and alternatives are well spent as our fossil addiction is disgusting, expensive and has a good chance of poisoning the world as we know it.Fossil energy is finite and the energy cartels are much like drug gangs. It's likely that a sustainable economy would be more egalitarian/

This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid. One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.The BBC article then asserts:

The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)

Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.There seems to be no shortage of theories about how rising CO2 levels will destroy the planet, yet the geological record shows that life flourished for hundreds of millions of years with much higher CO2 levels and temperatures. This is a primary reason why there are so many skeptics in the geological community. At some point the theorists will have to start paying attention to empirical data.

Anthony Watts - SourceWatch sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts Jump to Credentials held‎: Watts held an American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval (a discontinued credential that does not require a bachelor's

Guest post by Steven Goddard New Lows: Sea Ice and “Steven Goddard” credibility September 14, 2011 “Steven Goddard” is a pseudonym used by an anonymous climate denialist crank, so incredibly sloppy that he even embarrassed arch climate denier Anthony Watts, as shown in this link, and as I showed in one of last year’s “sea ice wrap-up” videos.http://climatecrocks.com/2011/...goddard-credibility/

The BBC ran an article this week titled “Acid oceans ‘need urgent action‘” based on the premise: The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.

This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. [B]Shall we say Ocean De-Alkalinization- how about Ocean pH reduction...... According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid.[/b] One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.DOH!The BBC article then asserts:

The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)sources?

At the beginning of the period, around 480 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect. The marine waters are assumed to have been around 45°C, which restricted the diversification of complex multi-cellular organisms. But over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters.[11]

Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.The news wasn't all good however, as there was a disturbingly high level of loss of coral species from around the atoll. Forty-two species of corals are missing compared to a study made before the atomic tests were carried out.There seems to be no shortage of theories about how rising CO2 levels will destroy the planet, yet the geological record shows that life flourished for hundreds of millions of years with much higher CO2 levels and temperatures. This is a primary reason why there are so many (how many?)[b] skeptics in the geological community. At some point the theorists will have to start paying attention to empirical data.

[B]For that kind of money, I could come up with stinkier BS.....

Environment Climate change scepticism

Climate sceptics – who gets paid what?

Leaked documents show US thinktank the Heartland Institute has been making payments to experts and scientists to cast doubt on climate science. Here, we profile some of the figures

Who they are A former TV weatherman from California who runs the "world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change", according to his climate sceptic blog, Watts Up With That?

How they influence Watts has been interviewed on Fox News by Glenn Beck about climate change and spoken at climate sceptic conferences. His blog posts, and those of his contributers, are widely and rapidly linked to and discussed across the climate sceptic 'blogosphere'.

Quote "Heh, I've yet to see that check or any from Exxon-Mobil or any other energy or development company. Somebody must be stealing checks out of my mailbox. /sarc – Anthony." (May, 2011)

Funding details Leaked documents revealed Watts was paid $44,000 by Heartland Institute in January – with a further $44,000 promised later this year – to set up a website "devoted to accessing the new temperature data from NOAA's web site."

Heartland Institute funding $44,000 one-off payment

Ocean Acidification to Hit 300-Million-Year Max

By Ars Technica March 2, 2012 | 10:00 am |

By Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica

Some like to point to cycles when dismissing climate change, brushing off warming as simply being the thing that happens right before cooling. In this view, concern about climate change is akin to the naïve worry that half of schools are performing below average. This is why we need context. We need to know whether an observed change is more like a world premiere or a familiar re-run.

arstechnicaA new paper in Science examines the geologic record for context relating to ocean acidification, a lowering of the pH driven by the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The research group (twenty-one scientists from nearly as many different universities) reviewed the evidence from past known or suspected intervals of ocean acidification. The work provides perspective on the current trend as well as the potential consequences. They find that the current rate of ocean acidification puts us on a track that, if continued, would likely be unprecedented in last 300 million years.

There are several ways acidification events leave their signature in the rock record. The isotopic composition of carbon changes with shifts in the carbon cycle, such as the movement of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Isotopes of boron present in marine shells track ocean water pH. The ratios of other trace elements in marine shells (such as uranium or zinc) to calcium indicate the availability of carbonate ions. (Ocean acidification is not just about pH, but the reduction of carbonate mineral saturation that makes it more difficult for calcifiers to build their shells.) In addition to all this, the fossil record records the extinctions and morphological changes in marine species that occur around catastrophic events in Earth history.Reconstructing the past

The paper covers the last 300 million years. That’s not just a round number—it’s about as far back as we can confidently go. Because plate tectonics drives oceanic plates back down into the mantle at subduction zones, there is no oceanic crust or sediment older than 180 million years for us to examine.

To look back farther than that, you’ve got to rely on the limited supply of marine rocks that shifted onto continental plates. That makes it harder to construct a global picture, as some regions become over-represented. Also, as these records extend deeper and deeper into the past, uncertainty in ages and calcifier physiology reduces confidence in the results of these analyses. Beyond 300 million years ago, the unknowns for some of these measures are just too large.

The first period the researchers looked at was the end of the last ice age, starting around 18,000 years ago. Over a period of about 6,000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels increased by 30 percent, a change of roughly 75 ppm. (For reference, atmospheric CO2 has gone up by about the same amount over the past 50 years.) Over that 6,000 year time period, surface ocean pH dropped by approximately 0.15 units. That comes out to about 0.002 units per century. Our current rate is over 0.1 units per century—two orders of magnitude greater, which lines up well with a model estimate we covered recently.

The last deglaciation did not trigger a mass extinction, but it did cause changes in some species. The shells of planktic foraminfera decreased by 40-50 percent, while those of coccolithophores went down 25 percent.

During the Pliocene warm period, about 3 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 was about the same as today, but pH was only 0.06 to 0.11 units lower than preindustrial conditions. This is because the event played out over 320,000 years or so. We see species migration in the fossil record in response to the warming planet, but not ill effects on calcifiers. This is because ocean acidification depends primarily on the rate of atmospheric CO2 increases, not the absolute concentration.

Next, the researchers turned their focus to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM), which occurred 56 million years ago. Global temperature increased about 6°C over 20,000 years due to an abrupt release of carbon to the atmosphere (though this was not as abrupt as current emissions). The PETM saw the largest extinction of deep-sea foraminifera of the last 75 million years, and was one of the four biggest coral reef disasters of the last 300 million years.

We don’t have good records of pH over this period, so it’s difficult to tell how much of the extinctions were caused by ocean acidification as opposed to the temperature change or decrease in dissolved oxygen that results from warming ocean water.

The group also examined the several mass extinctions that defined the Mesozoic—the age of dinosaurs. The boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic included a large increase in atmospheric CO2 (adding as much as 1,300 to 2,400 ppm) over a relatively short period of time, perhaps just 20,000 years. The authors write, “A calcification crisis amongst hypercalcifying taxa is inferred for this period, with reefs and scleractinian corals experiencing a near-total collapse.” Again, though, it’s unclear how much of the catastrophe can be blamed on acidification rather than warming.

Finally, we come the big one—The Great Dying. The Permian-Triassic mass extinction (about 252 million years ago) wiped out around 96 percent of marine species. Still, the rate of CO2 released to the atmosphere that drove the dangerous climate change was 10-100 times slower than current emissions.Matching the modern to history

In the end, the researchers conclude that the PETM, Triassic-Jurassic boundary, and Permian-Triassic boundary are the closest analogs to the modern day, at least as far as acidification is concerned. Due to the poor ocean chemistry data for the latter two, the PETM is the best event for us to compare current conditions. It’s still not perfect—the rate of CO2 increase was slower than today.

Perhaps more significantly, the ocean chemistry was actually less sensitive to change then. The ratio of magnesium to calcium in ocean water changes over time due to differences in volcanic activity along the mid-ocean ridges, among other things. When magnesium is high (as it is today), a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite becomes dominant. Aragonite is more soluble than calcite, so “aragonite seas” are more susceptible to the effects of acidification. Even though the PETM did not feature aragonite seas, it was a tumultuous time for many marine species.

While the authors frequently point out the difficulty in teasing apart the effects of ocean acidification and climate change, they argue that this is really an academic exercise. It’s more useful to consider the witches’ brew with all the ingredients—acidification, temperature change, and changes in dissolved oxygen—since, historically, those have come together. That combination produces unequivocally bad news.

The authors conclude, “[T]he current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 [million years] of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.”

Anthony Watts - SourceWatch sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts Jump to Credentials held‎: Watts held an American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval (a discontinued credential that does not require a bachelor's

Guest post by Steven Goddard New Lows: Sea Ice and “Steven Goddard” credibility September 14, 2011 “Steven Goddard” is a pseudonym used by an anonymous climate denialist crank, so incredibly sloppy that he even embarrassed arch climate denier Anthony Watts, as shown in this link, and as I showed in one of last year’s “sea ice wrap-up” videos.http://climatecrocks.com/2011/...goddard-credibility/

The BBC ran an article this week titled “Acid oceans ‘need urgent action‘” based on the premise: The world’s marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.

This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. [B]Shall we say Ocean De-Alkalinization- how about Ocean pH reduction...... According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid.[/b] One also has to wonder how they measured the pH of the ocean to 4 decimal places in 1751, since the idea of pH wasn’t introduced until 1909.DOH!The BBC article then asserts:

The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as “the other CO2 problem”, could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.

This does indeed sound alarming, until you consider that corals became common in the oceans during the Ordovician Era – nearly 500 million years ago – when atmospheric CO2 levels were about 10X greater than they are today. (One might also note in the graph below that there was an ice age during the late Ordovician and early Silurian with CO2 levels 10X higher than current levels, and the correlation between CO2 and temperature is essentially nil throughout the Phanerozoic.)sources?

At the beginning of the period, around 480 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect. The marine waters are assumed to have been around 45°C, which restricted the diversification of complex multi-cellular organisms. But over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters.[11]

Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be? In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees. Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving. Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast. The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.The news wasn't all good however, as there was a disturbingly high level of loss of coral species from around the atoll. Forty-two species of corals are missing compared to a study made before the atomic tests were carried out.There seems to be no shortage of theories about how rising CO2 levels will destroy the planet, yet the geological record shows that life flourished for hundreds of millions of years with much higher CO2 levels and temperatures. This is a primary reason why there are so many (how many?)[b] skeptics in the geological community. At some point the theorists will have to start paying attention to empirical data.

[B]For that kind of money, I could come up with stinkier BS.....

Environment Climate change scepticism

Climate sceptics – who gets paid what?

Leaked documents show US thinktank the Heartland Institute has been making payments to experts and scientists to cast doubt on climate science. Here, we profile some of the figures

Who they are A former TV weatherman from California who runs the "world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change", according to his climate sceptic blog, Watts Up With That?

How they influence Watts has been interviewed on Fox News by Glenn Beck about climate change and spoken at climate sceptic conferences. His blog posts, and those of his contributers, are widely and rapidly linked to and discussed across the climate sceptic 'blogosphere'.

Quote "Heh, I've yet to see that check or any from Exxon-Mobil or any other energy or development company. Somebody must be stealing checks out of my mailbox. /sarc – Anthony." (May, 2011)

Funding details Leaked documents revealed Watts was paid $44,000 by Heartland Institute in January – with a further $44,000 promised later this year – to set up a website "devoted to accessing the new temperature data from NOAA's web site."

Heartland Institute funding $44,000 one-off payment

Ocean Acidification to Hit 300-Million-Year Max

By Ars Technica March 2, 2012 | 10:00 am |

By Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica

Some like to point to cycles when dismissing climate change, brushing off warming as simply being the thing that happens right before cooling. In this view, concern about climate change is akin to the naïve worry that half of schools are performing below average. This is why we need context. We need to know whether an observed change is more like a world premiere or a familiar re-run.

arstechnicaA new paper in Science examines the geologic record for context relating to ocean acidification, a lowering of the pH driven by the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The research group (twenty-one scientists from nearly as many different universities) reviewed the evidence from past known or suspected intervals of ocean acidification. The work provides perspective on the current trend as well as the potential consequences. They find that the current rate of ocean acidification puts us on a track that, if continued, would likely be unprecedented in last 300 million years.

There are several ways acidification events leave their signature in the rock record. The isotopic composition of carbon changes with shifts in the carbon cycle, such as the movement of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Isotopes of boron present in marine shells track ocean water pH. The ratios of other trace elements in marine shells (such as uranium or zinc) to calcium indicate the availability of carbonate ions. (Ocean acidification is not just about pH, but the reduction of carbonate mineral saturation that makes it more difficult for calcifiers to build their shells.) In addition to all this, the fossil record records the extinctions and morphological changes in marine species that occur around catastrophic events in Earth history.Reconstructing the past

The paper covers the last 300 million years. That’s not just a round number—it’s about as far back as we can confidently go. Because plate tectonics drives oceanic plates back down into the mantle at subduction zones, there is no oceanic crust or sediment older than 180 million years for us to examine.

To look back farther than that, you’ve got to rely on the limited supply of marine rocks that shifted onto continental plates. That makes it harder to construct a global picture, as some regions become over-represented. Also, as these records extend deeper and deeper into the past, uncertainty in ages and calcifier physiology reduces confidence in the results of these analyses. Beyond 300 million years ago, the unknowns for some of these measures are just too large.

The first period the researchers looked at was the end of the last ice age, starting around 18,000 years ago. Over a period of about 6,000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels increased by 30 percent, a change of roughly 75 ppm. (For reference, atmospheric CO2 has gone up by about the same amount over the past 50 years.) Over that 6,000 year time period, surface ocean pH dropped by approximately 0.15 units. That comes out to about 0.002 units per century. Our current rate is over 0.1 units per century—two orders of magnitude greater, which lines up well with a model estimate we covered recently.

The last deglaciation did not trigger a mass extinction, but it did cause changes in some species. The shells of planktic foraminfera decreased by 40-50 percent, while those of coccolithophores went down 25 percent.

During the Pliocene warm period, about 3 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 was about the same as today, but pH was only 0.06 to 0.11 units lower than preindustrial conditions. This is because the event played out over 320,000 years or so. We see species migration in the fossil record in response to the warming planet, but not ill effects on calcifiers. This is because ocean acidification depends primarily on the rate of atmospheric CO2 increases, not the absolute concentration.

Next, the researchers turned their focus to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM), which occurred 56 million years ago. Global temperature increased about 6°C over 20,000 years due to an abrupt release of carbon to the atmosphere (though this was not as abrupt as current emissions). The PETM saw the largest extinction of deep-sea foraminifera of the last 75 million years, and was one of the four biggest coral reef disasters of the last 300 million years.

We don’t have good records of pH over this period, so it’s difficult to tell how much of the extinctions were caused by ocean acidification as opposed to the temperature change or decrease in dissolved oxygen that results from warming ocean water.

The group also examined the several mass extinctions that defined the Mesozoic—the age of dinosaurs. The boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic included a large increase in atmospheric CO2 (adding as much as 1,300 to 2,400 ppm) over a relatively short period of time, perhaps just 20,000 years. The authors write, “A calcification crisis amongst hypercalcifying taxa is inferred for this period, with reefs and scleractinian corals experiencing a near-total collapse.” Again, though, it’s unclear how much of the catastrophe can be blamed on acidification rather than warming.

Finally, we come the big one—The Great Dying. The Permian-Triassic mass extinction (about 252 million years ago) wiped out around 96 percent of marine species. Still, the rate of CO2 released to the atmosphere that drove the dangerous climate change was 10-100 times slower than current emissions.Matching the modern to history

In the end, the researchers conclude that the PETM, Triassic-Jurassic boundary, and Permian-Triassic boundary are the closest analogs to the modern day, at least as far as acidification is concerned. Due to the poor ocean chemistry data for the latter two, the PETM is the best event for us to compare current conditions. It’s still not perfect—the rate of CO2 increase was slower than today.

Perhaps more significantly, the ocean chemistry was actually less sensitive to change then. The ratio of magnesium to calcium in ocean water changes over time due to differences in volcanic activity along the mid-ocean ridges, among other things. When magnesium is high (as it is today), a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite becomes dominant. Aragonite is more soluble than calcite, so “aragonite seas” are more susceptible to the effects of acidification. Even though the PETM did not feature aragonite seas, it was a tumultuous time for many marine species.

While the authors frequently point out the difficulty in teasing apart the effects of ocean acidification and climate change, they argue that this is really an academic exercise. It’s more useful to consider the witches’ brew with all the ingredients—acidification, temperature change, and changes in dissolved oxygen—since, historically, those have come together. That combination produces unequivocally bad news.

The authors conclude, “[T]he current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 [million years] of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.”

A new study says the seas are acidifying ten times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. And, the study concludes, current changes in ocean chemistry due to the burning of fossil fuels may portend a new wave of die-offs.

Originally posted by john galt:Ocean Acidification and CoralsPosted on January 31, 2009 by Anthony WattsGuest post by Steven GoddardThe BBC ran an article this week titled “Acid oceans ‘need urgent action‘” based on the premise:

This sounds very alarming, so being diligent researchers we should of course check the facts. The ocean currently has a pH of 8.1, which is alkaline not acid. In order to become acid, it would have to drop below 7.0. According to Wikipedia “Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104.” At that rate, it will take another 3,500 years for the ocean to become even slightly acid.

We know that the carbon dioxide is a direct result of burning fossil fuels, as unlike the make up of living organisms, fossil fuels contain little or none of the radioactive form of carbon, that is, the carbon 14 isotope, which has eight neutrons in the nucleus rather than the usual six. Fossil fuels also display a unique ratio of the two stable isotopes of carbon (carbon 12 and 13). The combustion of these fuels thus leaves a distinctive isotopic signature in the atmosphere. So no one can question where the growing surplus of carbon dioxide comes from.

There's not a 'hope-in-hell' that humans will do anything to stop the inevitable race to extinction for themselves and many of the other species on the planet. Sure, a few individuals like you and I will significantly reduce their impact on the planet, but those few are but a drop in the bucket and will never make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

We're simply not intelligent enough to survive.

You're right.

I have given up on all this enviro friendly, save the planet hogwash long ago.It is completely and utterly pointless other than for big business to cash in on it.

Individuals are being fed and brainwashed with the save the planet crap but at every turn big biz and gubbermints are doing laughable and hypocritical things against what they are saying.

We are being told to recyclable things that take more energy and create more emissions than the manufacture of new products consumes. A lot of what we are being told to recycle is being dumped anyway because its cheaper and less pollouting to create new.

While I'm being told to tun off the energy saving lamps I was FORCED to put in my place to save energy, The real reason is that the electricity company grid has been neglected and the current gubbermint is trying to avoid spending the money on upgrading it just like the last one did and the ones about 3 before that.

At the same time I'm being made to feel bad about leaving a light on, companies are dumping perfectly good products that were energy and resource intensive to manufacture because they are outdtated models or they changed the packaging etc.

My Brother in law manages a waste transfer station that handles 200+tons of " Waste" a day. He says at LEAST 15% is brand new, perfectly useable goods and products dumped for any reason other than it is defective in any way. The amount of things he brings home that include everything from wristwatches to mobile phones, machinery, furniture, white goods, computers, TV's and other electronics makes all this environmental Crap a complete and utter joke.

Until we stop paying lip service to it and putting it on the man on the street to do all the work, nothing will happen. Big business is not going to change and what it does every day will undermine the individual efforts of people for a lifetime.

When I see the gubbermints and big business stop insulting my intelligence with what they do, then I'll take this save the planet crap seriously. Until such time I'll pollute and do what the hell I want knowing that whatever I do is completely insignificant and makes no difference to anything what so ever.

Originally posted by SUB:Quoting out of context.... John Galt- were you involved with the climate gate affair?Correction: misquoting out of context//

HAHAHAH!

Yeah, Galts a classic.

Whenever he quotes anything, always check the source out because 9 times out of 10 the piece he is quoting is far more persuasive to the other side of the argument than his. He just selectively quotes things to twist the intent of the article around and make it say the complete opposite in his usual desperate point scoring attempts to be seen as right at any price.

He's been caught out so many times now you think he'd learn but I guess it takes a special sort of insecurity to be as persistent as he is!

It's a senseless tragedy, the killing must be stopped. Every day in America almost 90 people die because someone misused one of these killing machines. They should all be registered, and people should have a license to use one. That would stop almost all the killing for sure. But that's not enough. Ban the high performance models. It's common knowledge that even normal people can become crazed killers when they use one of those. Anyone could snap at any instant, the risk to public safety is too great. After all who really needs a car that can go faster than the speed limit, and limit them to four cylinders or less. And ban high capacity fuel tanks, that's too much explosive for anyone to be carrying with them wherever they go, it just allows them to speed longer before they have to stop and fill up. Too much inconvenience? Is your 'convenience' really worth it if we can save the life of even one child? This is just the start to eventually banning all cars. It will save tens of thousands of innocent lives every year, it will stop pollution, ocean acidification, global warming, and climate change. Every day will be the perfect temperature, and it can rain overnight. Don't worry about guns, they kill less than a third of the number that vehicles kill, and banning guns won't stop global warming. We have to get our priorities straight on this issue. Don't be selfish, do it for the children, stop the senseless killing

Originally posted by Ttommy: When I see the gubbermints and big business stop insulting my intelligence with what they do, then I'll take this save the planet crap seriously. Until such time I'll pollute and do what the hell I want knowing that whatever I do is completely insignificant and makes no difference to anything what so ever.

Originally posted by Ttommy: When I see the gubbermints and big business stop insulting my intelligence with what they do, then I'll take this save the planet crap seriously. Until such time I'll pollute and do what the hell I want knowing that whatever I do is completely insignificant and makes no difference to anything what so ever.

Change begins with you//

CRAP!You can have all the people in the country pi$$ on a bushfire and it still won't make one bit of difference.

Everyone in any city in the world could never make another Mg of carbon or any other pollutant again and it would still be totally and utterly meaningless compared to the pollution and waste big business produces every day.

And the argument of don't buy polluting products or whatever is stupid as well. I don't have time to research the way everything I buy is produced or packaged nor can I have any impact on their wasteful dumping of perfectly good products.

Since my last post I have been back to the brother in laws waste station. What I picked up, Brand new in unopened boxes was nothing short of criminal. I picked up solar panel inverters made 3 months ago that were thrown out. Not even put in for recycling, throw out to go in landfill. That is fing criminal considering the amount of energy and resources that went into them. I'll be going back to get some more as there were a load of the things there.

There was other stuff as well I picked up that I'm looking at worth thousands of dollars that I can't believe was just put to waste. I'll certainly put it to use and people will ask me WTF i spent all the money on those and then not believe me when tell them I got it off a rubbish pile hours before it was all destined to go to land fill. I can't say what it was, it's all supposed to be destroyed because the companies don't want to undermine their sales.

I also visited my fathers Wrecking yard. The way perfectly good cars are written off and unable to be registered again is also criminal wastage. There were multiple vehicles there in his small yard that were superficially damaged and could have been repaired by a clown like me in half a day for a few hundred $$ worth of parts. These cars could have given years more service and although are around 10 YO at most, still run the same emission controls and standards as anything off the showroom floor.

The difference in the resources and energy expended to replace them and what could be saved by using these things to the end of their practical rather than superficial life is ridiculous. While I was there I did pick up a new used Vehicle for the wife which was also destined to be scrapped. It had some scratches down the side which I buffed out and save for one light one, didn't actually damage the paint.

The clutch was shot due to a stuffed throw out bearing that ate it's way through teh pressure plate fingers so I put a near new clutch kit in the thing salvaged from another vehicle and it drives perfectly. The motor does not have a single oil weep let alone leak. The interior is leather and unmarked in every way. I spent 6 hours cleaning, buffing and replacing the clutch and drove the thing home 350 KM and it's is PERFECT.

I have my eye on another vehicle up there which has an absoloutley spotless interior that is all leather and full luxury. It has some engine issues but there is another vehicle we think we can get what we need off it to get the first one working perfectly. It's criminal how the law and economy prefer to just put things largely to waste rather than have anyone put some effort into a few hours of fixing them for what could easily be another 5-10 years of life.

When you see something like this about to be wasted, you know all the save the planet BS is just something pushed on the sheeple for big business to cash in on.

When this is the mentality of Governments and big business, to say It's up to the individuals is naive in the extreme. When companies who have huge influence start putting the environment over profit and stop the wastage alone it will be more significant than all the efforts of conscious people put together.